Wedded bliss can vary widely

I asked Tina Zlody, who has been legally hitched to Louie Despres for seven years, if she was ever troubled by the fact that her otherwise-happy marriage is a pointless and empty sham.

Confirmed non-breeders, Zlody and Despres own a home in Worcester and are popular fixtures in the local arts scene. But because they are childless, their union has no purpose other than to serve their “emotional needs and desires,” according to a lawyer who made that argument this week before the United States Supreme Court.

Personally, I can think of no better reason than the attainment of personal joy to do just about anything, but I, too, am a barren heathen who lives solely for my pleasure. I make no apologies for that, nor should any adult whose decisions affect no one but themselves.

As for Zlody, she’s too busy being a happy and productive member of her community to realize that, according to those seeking to ban gay marriage because it can’t lead to biological procreation, she and her hubby have utterly failed to serve society’s interests.

“That is completely ridiculous,” said Zlody, 46, the artistic guru behind the city’s successful stART on the Street festivals. “People get married for lots of reasons, like love and commitment. Uh, oh — did I break the law because I don’t have kids?”

Of all the inane and offensive arguments supporting a ban on same-sex marriage — and there are plenty, so take your pick — the one that drives me nuts is the claim that the purpose of marriage is procreation. Two questions immediately come to mind: Are we Herefords? And, how many sons are needed in the 21st century to help run the family farm?

On the first day of Supreme Court hearings for two historic gay marriage cases, we once again heard the tired old claim that the production of offspring is the purpose of wedlock, which must come as big news to the countless couples who use contraception and are fans of personal freedom.

“The concern is that redefining marriage as a genderless institution will sever its abiding connection to its historic traditional procreative purposes and it will ... refocus the purpose of marriage and the definition of marriage away from the raising of children and to the emotional needs and desires ... of adult couples,” said pro-Proposition 8 lawyer Charles Cooper.

And that’s a bad thing? As Zlody noted, people get married for lots of reasons. Some couples want to have kids, and good for them. Some don’t. But I’ve never understood the claim that childless couples are selfish. People who have children typically want them for the joy and fulfillment they bring to their lives, and what’s more selfish than that?

I’m hardly the first to argue that lots of straight couples can’t have kids, and we let them get married anyway. Meanwhile, gays can have families in a number of ways — adoption, surrogacy, artificial insemination. Justice Anthony Kennedy noted this week that some 40,000 children in California live with same-sex parents.

Marital vows are about love, not to propagate the species, which is in no danger of dying out anytime soon. And if anyone still tries to argue that straight people make better parents and produce more well-adjusted kids, don’t make me mention Michael and Dina Lohan.

“Ever since I understood what being a parent was, I knew from a very early age that it wasn’t for me,” Zlody said. “I just didn’t want them, and I still don’t. And Louie didn’t want to be a dad. We love our lives. I have four gay friends who got married and have kids and I’m thrilled for them, but that doesn’t mean I have to have kids, too.”

Zlody is absolutely right. Just because gay people are having children willy nilly doesn’t mean that straight couples must mimic everything they do.